quod in somnio non veniet
Intransigence: quod in somnio non veniet – by Twifight Sparkill
"I barely recognize who you are anymore."
Exasperation caused involuntary twitches at the eyes and eartips of the volatile lunar Princess, definitive indications of an impending emotional meltdown.
So predictable.
"Who we barely are anymore..." Luna recounted in a slow, grating monotone, brows knit in anger. She actively detested my sacrilegious slander, which always gave me cause to smile.
"Lapping placidly at the bejewelled soaking hooves of your megalomaniacal sibling, despite all of her tyrannical transgressions? Disgraceful."
The illusory landscape was as it had ever been: an unadorned stark gray field, painted featureless in every besotted direction, portraying nothing. The endless monochrome sky sucked at the distant tips of the horizon, suffocating everything beneath it in an ineffectual embrace.
"Ye shall refrain from being obtuse with us," the dark mare chastised, turning up her nose. "We are obviously still Princess Luna, and we're desperately attempting to rehabilitate you. Will ye not take our efforts seriously for once, please?"
I'd initially found the setting disturbing compared to the quixotic manners of other dreamscapes; generally, dreams were made of fanciful imagery and impossible scenarios, often creating a whirling cavalcade of colors and movement that could make a mind dizzy for struggling to keep up with the whole besotted mess. Having gotten to know this inimitable particular after so many visits, the bleak surroundings made perfect sense as a backdrop – it offered nothing of solace.
"Fine then, I'm sorry that you've elected to be substandard."
The young alicorn straightened, regained her proper imperial stance, then glowered menacingly at me.
"Together with our beloved sister Celestia, we've achieved and maintained a peaceful prosperity and ruled Equestria for thousands of years. We raise the moon and manipulate the night sky. Every pony knows of us! There is no question of our identity and status; we are as we have been since forever, without fail."
There was no hope to be had here. No wishes, nothing save the nearly tangible pain that hung within the aching solitude.
"We are thy Princess. Thou dost know well why we're here," she growled, scuffing at the lifeless ground in agitation.
After some thorough consideration, the Lunar Goddess ultimately managed a breathy sigh. She quickly shed her disappointment to regain an appropriately imposing regal decorum.
"Let us not waste our time again with hopeless pretense. We have met every night since that sparing moment resulting in thy defeat, in this place, yet ye continue to deny our ministrations. Why will ye not trust us, as this? Have we not been clear in our intentions to help thee? Surely thou must appreciate the lengths we've gone to after all these countless times we've met, yes?"
Obviously she'd forgotten how wasted her pretentious posturing was on me, even though it'd always solicited a verbose remark.
"... yes, I do." I said, nodding.
Luna blinked a few times, then grit her teeth, grappling to word an appropriate response – she knew I was being purposefully arbitrary. The alicorn narrowed her eyes, looking about her hooves as if to find an answer written there in the dust, then grudgingly relented.
"... we must beg thy pardon?"
"I must continue to deny your condescending assistance, meaning to say."
"Ah yes," she accepted, her restless wings settling in neatly feathered folds against her sides. "... as expected. We appreciate thy needless clarification, naturally. However, we're required to help thee regardless. It is our duty as Princess to mind our subjects as mandatory. Thou art no exception, and despite thine indignant refusal, remain a matter of personal concern."
"I am aware of this," I admitted, grinning wryly. "I have no choice but to accept your esteemed deific verdict for the umpteenth time, which although a blessing, comes as a tad... oppressive. You haven't changed at all, dear Luna, and you obviously never will."
That seemed to strike a nerve in the troubled dream attendant.
"How dare thee!" the alicorn growled. She narrowed her eyes, stepping well back from me, then reared up in an aggressive stance. Her wings flared outward, and she began to levitate from the derelict grounds upon which we'd stood, eyes glowing an unearthly white.
"Though but an illusory world, such disparaging accusations are vehemently treasonous!" Luna roared in an authoritative voice, shaking the nondescript support beneath my hooves, striking a suitably imposing attitude. "Speak carefully to thy Princess, lest there be lawful consequences! Dost thou not recognize whom thou dost address? Have ye forgotten thy place!?"
This was the first time in all of our grandiose encounters that she'd not withered against my provocative verbiage. I wasn't quite prepared for the lunar alicorn to suddenly stand her ground, though I managed not to show it.
Although... since meeting in our unconscious ages ago, I was only now struck by how ineffectual these objectless attempts at making amends actually were; the incessant stately protocol the young alicorn would insist upon, spouting her idealistic nonsense at me – satisfying none save the gifted crowned affairs and nopony of actual mortal merits – a dreamer that rightfully had no lawful tidings to begin with. As if the immobile commandments stated by the monarchy, preached as some self-serving omniscient diatribe, could ever righteously persuade any pony save those that blithely followed out of fear and subjugation.
It was laughable. It was redundant. It was all terribly comical, if a bit ironic really.
"I know exactly where I stand," I sneered. "I know that..."
... I'd assumed to have lived on within the heart of the moon Princess despite my defeat, for being some unconquerable monster, waiting for an opportunity to turn Luna back towards all the deepest, darkest resentments she'd ever held close.
"I..."
... admittedly only existed for Luna damning her inferior province.
Felicitous as some viable excuse to rebel against the solar authority that belittled her popular status in the first place, I became an alibi that capably exonerated Luna from any actual impeachment; created as a harrowing resistance to justify her deep-seated resentment, viewed independently as some volatile machination threatening the grand ruling scheme. I represented an empyrical rebellion, wholly bent upon the subjugation of their entire world! I delighted in being Luna's mythical foil, an indomitable gestalt bent on ruining anyone who'd ever crossed her! A blessed terrifying saviour beyond misgivings!
I dutifully portrayed the antithesis to all the regal commonality she'd endured for being delegated a subordinate via birthright, and thus remained as an arguably independent consciousness regardless! Didn't I? Invented as an irrefutable existence by definition! That had to be worth something, didn't it? I must have existed before my purpose! I AM AS MADE AWARE TO BE, AND THUS BY DEFINITION AN INDIVIDUAL BY DETERMINATION! AM I RIGHT?
... a persistent counterpoint stabbed me in the core – beyond all the savage altercations and scathing words exchanged during our hapless appointments together, I'd ignorantly assumed that my esteemed contrary presence persisted before offering the ruling autonomy a method of combating her consequences before the onset of permanent psychological damage... or as a result. In fact, I was arguably nothing but some pained memories left within the lunar alicorn's guilty subconscious to offer some tangible excuse that'd warrant her misgivings and insubordination a due forgiveness, left here as regrets would be - unresolved, and bitter to readdress.
After all the rotted time we'd spent trying to acquit our atrocities wrought upon the world, the lunar Princess arguing incessant newfound friendship beliefs against my indomitable vengeful oppose, I'd at some point become blithely unaware that I was more likely a powerless effigy that didn't essentially exist; mere restless opposition by Luna's irksome design, which she desperately held close to explain her intense self-loathing.
Her treaty was a pointless kindness offered up to some shameful memory that persisted beyond causing any more harm, remaining merely as a face and motivation that had long since fallen from power that she could scold and cry against.
"I matter," I still insisted in a quavering voice as my mind reeled. "Obviously I matter."
Was I newly manufactured as the fractured malevolence Luna required during every tedious visit, as it had to burden someone to suffer it? Or a trapped facet of her fractured personality, as the case may be? Because watching the alicorn suffer over and over again, demoralized and dejected for being forced to admit her servile subjugation, required a pathetic invented audience even if it was born from her own perspective?
... was knowing she was as much a hostage as I was, in this place, a justification of our incessant torment? Had I only remained as some obscure immortal morality to make us both suffer beyond martyrdom?
Something inside me stopped; any villainous hopes of regaining myself, attaining control... being real. It all suddenly stopped, and gratefully so for being so ludicrous.
"Just... for the sake of argument, just tell us what you want," I managed in a gentle voice, searching for any conceivable way to survive this standoff.
Princess Luna lowered to the ground, landing with a soft flourish, her head bowed low. She struck a somber pose that almost begged for me to be piteously compliant.
"We only ask that ye desist fighting us," she whispered in a barely audible voice, managed thin and almost doting. "Do not assume that we are still adversaries. We are very desperately trying to help thee, and nothing more. Let the past be, and put to rest what separates us."
The sudden attitude pulled roughly at my frayed nerves. From vaulted deification to desperate dependent, her shift made me recognize something in myself that had always bothered me – we were always both terribly vulnerable, and had been every time we'd come to this realization as infinitum. It made my heart ache. I wanted it to stop.
"... help me. Help us." I pleaded.
Perhaps in hindsight I'd mistakenly affected some sympathetic change in our farcical charade before calculating certain risks; if I was a construct of the lunar Princess' ego, was I risking deletion? I'd offered a genuine surrender nevertheless, even though it possibly represented my end as a thinking, feeling entity.
Then, upon recollection, was I ever one to start with? I found everything to the contrary of my existence hard to argue anymore, honestly.
I mean, I believed I existed, although proof suggested I persisted as a result of the Goddesses' pain. I'd retained memories of my time imprisoned and all the hatred I'd poured upon the world and ... my egotistical sister, especially. She could never accept that anyone could ever be as capable as she, the damnable sun. It was an arrogance that still made my flesh crawl.
Who needed help here, exactly? Who attempts to exist solely for the sake of serving others, under an oppressive godly bondage, except those who need to be helped the most? Is there anyone that could ever realistically fill the role – served their own desires as well as all those of others – and maintain an entirely separate and involved self?
Is that why I'm trapped here? Existing as an indelible stain upon what makes us whole?
Everyone must absently manufacture excuses within themselves to maintain the vices of their very worst id; imaginary voices, built to placate and flippantly justify our terrible choices, vindicating their basest machinations – self-destructive flaws that maintain humility opposed to gratifying accomplishments and appreciating good tidings.
Nopony. There is no pony that could realistically maintain this level of altruistic madness. This was a fractured charade best left to the most hopeless of dreamers.
To me, I suppose. For the sake of us both.
"Are we back to where we'd started, then?" I asked aloud. "Have we met the same ludicrous stalemate we've found every time we engage in this pathetic rhetoric we pretend is necessary?"
"Yes." The dark alicorn admitted and cringed, scuffing her forehoof against the monochrome soil in quiet frustration, as she'd often wont to. "Why dost thou delight in making these meetings so hard for us? We're only here to help, yet ye insist upon being contrary. Ye make us question why we're here and why we try so desperately to make thine dreams enjoyable, to make a peace between us...
... who are ye and me?"
Luna paused, wiped the wetness from her eyes, then continued.
"Ye make us hate thee. Hate... us. We don't want to help anymore! Ye remain abstinent against our attempts, and it hurts us so badly and ye do such on purpose! We would like to know why! Why do we do this? Why is this so important to us? Why do we hate everyone and everything because we can't make this last thing right!?"
"... because we have to."
I stepped into the impossible distance between us. I threw her into a rough, desperate embrace, and held Luna tight to my chest. It was wonderful, really. Together, we remained there in a firm grip, being still and quiet. For the first time since she'd returned, we together were nearly one. I wasn't lost. I didn't die, which surprised me.
Neither of us seemed afraid anymore.
"I think I understand now," I whispered in her ear, feeling the Goddess fall limp within my clutch.
"We know," Luna wept, sobbing against my shoulder. "We... we always hoped you would."
... and so I left her behind in her dream, wondering how we'd ever manage understanding the truth.
---
The daily morning ritual held between myself and my sister, Princess Celestia, was committed as ever. We met upon the highest precipice of Canterlot castle, shared banal pleasantries, and converted our solar and satellite maneuvers with near effortless proficiency.
"You seem quite calm today, beloved sister," Celestia remarked, turning back towards the castle, "though not very happy. Are you troubled by something?"
"Yes," I admitted softly, pausing to stare one last time towards the horizon before joining her. "We finally recognize our place. Our part in the world...
... we'll always be a monster because we have to be."
Celestia paused, giving me a quizzical glance.
"Is that so?" she asked, slowing enough to let me catch up.
I drew a sharp breath, exhaled it out in a long, defeated groan, and relented.
"We're doomed for eternity to play a bit part in a bad story that needs a villain, no matter our desires. Despite how much we may desperately want to be happy, to be loved... it cannot be."
The sun Goddess wore a thoughtful expression, staring absently at the floor as she listened to us.
"Tell us, would you please?" I pleaded. "Are we nothing more to this existence than gaudy posturing puppets poised to placate some nonsensical balance that nature insists upon? Good versus evil? Right and wrong? After suffering for so long with misgivings, resentment, regrets and intolerance, can't we redesign our fates? Is this ...
... is this all there is for us in this obligation?"
Celestia offered a faint smile, patting my shoulder.
"Welcome back to us, dear sister."
The End.